Hon. Brent Cotter: Honourable senators, despite the excellent answers by committee chairs today, my question is for Senator Gold.

The Government of Canada — wisely, in my view — established the Strategic Innovation Fund a few years ago and to date it has made available over $5.6 billion to fund innovative business initiatives across the country.

Despite a number of high-quality applications from Saskatchewan businesses, some of which I have reviewed, so far, of the $5.6 billion and 103 projects approved, a total of one project from Saskatchewan has been funded, in 2018, to Evraz, a Russian oligarch-owned business. This represents less than 1% of approved projects and barely two thirds of 1% of the funding from the Strategic Innovation Fund to Saskatchewan projects. At a certain point, this unbalanced distribution of funding for innovative projects across the country stops becoming an anomaly and becomes a statistical impossibility.

Why are deserving Saskatchewan businesses doing so poorly in terms of receiving support from the Strategic Innovation Fund?